Whew!

Whew! was an American game show produced by Bud Austin Company that aired on CBS television from April 23, 1979, until May 30, 1980. It was hosted by Tom Kennedy and announced by Rod Roddy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Main game

Two players compete in the main game. The challenger is shown the categories for the first two rounds of play, and decides who will "Charge" and who will "Block" for each of those rounds. Whoever is selected as the first Charger is sent offstage while the Blocker observes the board. The Blocker then receives the chance to place 6 Blocks on the board. No more than 3 can be placed on any one of the gold levels, and no more than one can be placed on the final level.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When the Blocker makes their selections, the Charger returns, and is given 60 seconds to correct one "Blooper" from each level, starting at Level 1 and working their way up the board, one level at a time. A Blooper would consist of a factual statement with a portion of it mangled to make it humorously incorrect, usually (but not always) in a rhyming fashion. The incorrect portion of the statement is underlined, and the Charger would have to correct only that portion of the statement to recieve credit for a right answer. (For instance, "Jeff Probst says on Survivor, 'The vibe has broken,'" would be answered with "The tribe has spoken," while the right answer for "The B&O was the first American passenger smell" would be "railroad.") If the Charger picked a square that had been blocked, they were forced to wait for 5 seconds before choosing another Blooper on that level. Bloopers generally increased in difficulty only by dollar value, not level; that is to say, for instance, a $30 Blooper on Level 4 is theoretically no more difficult than a $30 Blooper on Level 1.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If time was running out and it appeared unlikely the Charger could make it through the board, he or she had the opportunity to make one last-ditch effort to win the round. By yelling "Long Shot!" the clock would stop and the Charger would immediately jump to Level 6, bypassing all of the levels in between. The Blocker would then get the chance to add a secret Block to that level, in addition to the one Block (if he or she chose to put one there) previously placed on that level. Once the new Block was placed, the Charger had one chance to reveal one of the three positions on Level 6. If the Charger, after calling for a Long Shot, found a Blooper and correctly answered it, they then won the round. If, however, the Charger uncovered a Block, then the Blocker would take the round.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Charger wins the round by either calling a Long Shot then correctly answering a Blooper, or finishing all levels within 60 seconds. The Blocker wins by either the Charger hitting a block after a Long Shot, or the Charger running out of time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first player to win two rounds won the match and moved onto the bonus round, winning the total of all the Bloopers solved along with the value of any Blocks their opponent hit. This added an element of strategy, as the Blocker could theoretically place blocks on all the $50 spaces in the hopes of winning the theoretical maximum amount per board ($750), but the Charger could see this coming and go for the lower values instead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the unlikely event the Charger would go through all five positions on a given level without correctly answering one Blooper, he or she was allowed a free pass to the next level. However, by this point so much time would have been taken off the clock that it would be almost impossible to save the round without resorting to a Long Shot.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Gauntlet of Villains

The winning player faced a series of 10 "Villains", wooden caricatures of stereotypical "bad guys," each of them trying to prevent the player from winning the money. The player's time limit for this round was 60 seconds, plus 1 second for each $100 won in the main game. (Thus, a player who won $1,100 had 11 additional seconds to go with the base time of 60, for a total of 71 seconds.) Host Kennedy read a Blooper in front of each Villain, and the contestant then had 2 seconds to answer it. (For this round only, all Bloopers featured only one incorrect word, and it was always the last word of the statement.) If the player answered correctly, he or she moved on to the next Villain; if not, the correct answer appeared in a monitor set into that Villain's "belly," and the player was held at that Villain until he or she gave a correct answer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If the player reached the end of the Gauntlet, they won $25,000 (and retired from the show, $25,000 being the CBS "winnings cap" at the time for game shows featuring returning champions). If the player failed, they received $100 for each Villain passed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Though rarely used on the air, each of the ten Villains in the Gauntlet had names. These were, in order:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• 1. Alphonse the Gangster
• 2. Bruno the Headsman (a medieval executioner)
• 3. Mr. Van Louse the Landlord
• 4. Nero the Fiddler
• 5. Count Nibbleneck the Vampire
• 6. Frank and his little friend Stein
• 7. Kid Rotten the Gunslinger
• 8. Jeremy Swash the Pirate
• 9. Dr. Deranged the Mad Scientist
• 10. Lucretia the Witch

Celebrity Whew!

About halfway through the show's run, 2 celebrity/">celebrities were assigned as partners to either contestant. The teams of 2 alternated Charging duties between levels, placed 3 of the 6 Blocks each on the board, and each took half of the Gauntlet of Villains bonus round. Aside from these adjustments, no other changes in format were made.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Final Week Note

During Whew!s last week on the air (May 26-30, 1980), the format was slightly adjusted so the show no longer "straddled"; that is, could end with a game or match still in progress, to be resumed on the next episode. Under these new rules, each episode began a new match between two teams (the "celebrity" format still being in place here), and if one team won the best-of-three match in two straight rounds, that team would play a special third round (what would have been the tie-breaker round) solo, with a pattern of Blocks randomly selected from a database of many different legal Blocking patterns by a computer (ostensibly programmed by the "Villains" of the endgame). This "bonus round" was played for additional money for the contestant, as well as additional Gauntlet time. These adjustments were made to help ensure that the series would not end in the middle of a game that could not be completed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

American: :This page disambiguates the many uses of American. For an article about those various uses, please see Use of the word American....

Game show: :"Quiz show" redirects here; for the movie, see Quiz Show. For the scandals of that name, see Quiz show scandals...

1979: This page refers to the year 1979. For the Smashing Pumpkins song, see 1979 (song)....